The present invention relates to optical readers and in particular to a reader compatible with data bearing media of different widths and wherein a perforator drive wheel may be selectively actuated to cancel the medium, upon the reading thereof.
With the advent of the computer, punched cards and the like bearing machine readable data have become a commonplace part of daily life. Such cards typically contain data that is either machine entered and/or hand entered at appropriately designated locations on one or more of the card's surfaces. Such hard copies of the data are subsequently transferred or "dumped" onto other media (e.g. magnetic tape, disk memory, etc.), thus condensing the data. The data cards are then either stored or destroyed.
While most typically such data cards are encountered in computer processing operations, alternatively they may be encountered in school, personnel or time keeping settings, to name but a few of the settings where such data is generated. A problem often encountered upon first entering or reading such data from a card is one of providing a visual notice to the data entry operator that the entry of the card's data into the system has taken place. Specifically, once a card is read, no commercially available apparatus of which we are aware provides the operator with an indication of the cancellation or previous reading of the card. Thus, it is possible for an operator to re-read a card and enter redundant data. This redundant operation may, in turn, go undetected, due to the failure to mark the card for visual, tactile and/or machine inspection. The present invention, however, contemplates a photo-optic card reader that selectively perforates the data containing media as it is read so as to provide a visually and tactilely detectable indication that the data has already been once read.
While card readers with cancellation features have been developed for other applications, such readers are not configured to perform their cancellation tasks via a selectively actuable drive/perforator assembly. Rather, such prior art assemblies cancel the data containing media in a number of other different fashions with diferently configured hardware. Examples of some of these assemblies can be found upon reference to U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,968,521; 3,695,510; 3,793,600; 4,204,637 and 4,300,041, and which include apparatus that magnetically marks or alters the card, punches the card or slits portions therefrom.
In particular, it is to be noted that the aforementioned readers do not contain a drive assembly having a perforator/drive wheel for conveying the cards through the reader and for selectively perforating one or more surfaces thereof so as to provide a visual and tactile indication of cancellation. Furthermore, they do not show an assembly wherein one of the drive wheels may be used to transport a data bearing medium into and out of the reader station and which may be selectively actuated to grasp the cards with varying amounts of pressure, via a solenoid actuated linkage assembly, so as to individually cancel the cards with imprinted perforations. Additionally, the present apparatus differs from the prior art in that it is adaptable, via a floating card guide assembly, to read data bearing media of different widths. Thus, not only can standard punch cards be read and cancelled, but also the narrower webbed data tapes that are becoming more common can also be handled in this fashion.
The above objects, advantages and distinctions of the present invention as well as various others will, however, become more apparent upon reference to the following description thereof with respect to the following drawings. It is to be recognized, though, that while the following description is made with respect to the presently preferred embodiment of the present invention, various modifications thereto and/or other embodiments thereof are conceivable, without departing from the spirit of the present invention.